Blame The Original ‘Ghostbusters’ If You Don’t Like The New One

After 27 years and countless stabs at mounting a comeback, a new Ghostbusters film finally made its way to theaters this weekend despite the caustic cries of a small contingent of fans who objected to the sex of the film’s main characters. Ghostbusters is being counted as a success thanks to a solid (but not jaw-dropping) $46 million opening, but the critical response has ranged from positive to mixed. While the gripes vary, many are centered on the belief that the remake found a way to both fail in its effort to match the chemistry of the original and that it tried too hard to get that result. But while some of those failures may have been inevitable, they may not have been in vain.

Looking to the original, producer/director Paul Feig clearly recognized the need to bring together a group that had a history in an effort to replicate the chemistry. Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, and Kristen Wiig are all current or recent Saturday Night Live cast members (though, Wiig left just after McKinnon arrived and before Jones) and Melissa McCarthy, no stranger to SNL herself, has worked with Feig four times. Two of those — Ghostbusters and Bridesmaids — teamed her with Wiig. This mirrors the bond shared by Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd as SNL compatriots for four seasons and Murray’s close working relationships with both Harold Ramis and producer/director Ivan Reitman, who directed him in Meatballs and Stripes. There’s a big difference, though: The original Ghostbusters group, for the most part, crafted the film’s story together, whereas Feig and his co-writer, Kate Dippold, more or less handed down their script to the cast.

“We had no time! From conception to delivery in a theater it was only 13 months. I think there was something about being forced to do it so quickly that we were totally relying on our instincts, complemented by a group of actors who were really my co-writers as well. So we were all sort of creating together.”

“At the same time we had all worked together before so there was a wonderful comfort in knowing you were working with family who had your back. I mean, I could turn to Harold [Ramis] at some point and say, ‘You’ve got to give me something better than this, we’re in real trouble here.’ People were improvising and doing funny things and I was working like hell to try to contain it into something that was tonally consistent for the whole movie.”

There was, of course, improv and last minute tweaking on the set of the new film. Chris Hemsworth’s best lines reportedly emerged as a part of that process and Feig is known for encouraging improvisation. But there was no hierarchy between writers and actors on the set of the original since they were one and the same in the case of Aykroyd and Ramis, with Murray pulling many of his lines out of thin air while filming. It’s that uncommon flexibility between Ivan Reitman and his frequent collaborators that had a hand in producing a tightly paced film whose story was enhanced by the unforced dynamic between actors who were in control of the story and reading lines that they authored. That level of collaboration might have benefited the remake considering the talent of the cast, even if would be highly irregular for a tentpole film with a $145 million budget and the weight of being a franchise reboot.

That line was the weirdest in this insane diatribe whose sole purpose was to make this movie sound good. Bad sequels/reboots/remakes get made all the time and we don’t spend 1/100th of the time talking about it like we have with Ghostbusters 2016. It’s out now, we can all make the decision for ourselves if we like it or not. Enough with talking about it.

I bet you a lot of films you liked growing up were actually remakes. We used to like it when films were uptated for our tastes and sensibilities, as well as seeing younger, familiar faces playing the characters in a way we found more relatable. Baby boomers probably hated those updates (“Ugh, why does every new film is the rehash of old ideas but with sassy, seemingly fatherless teenagers?”), but younger us totally ate that shit up because it was all about us. Now that they remade a movie we liked it’s easy to forget that the old Ghostbusters might be really starting to show its age, at least to the eye of a younger viewer. My younger sister finds it too slow, for example. And it’s a 32 year old comedy, for fuck’s sake. Old enough to give it a new spin. Newer comedies, great ones, have already been remade, with mixed results. It wouldn’t surprise me if plenty of teenagers already like the new version better than the original. You might think that’s just terrible taste, but to them it’ll be a just funny film of their youth and that’s how fond memories are born. The original Ghostbusters was never perfect, it seems that way to us because we have fond memories both of the movie and the actors (we basically forgave Bill Murray more unfunny failures than the four new leads ever had… combined). Many youngsters will still prefer the original, some will mean it, some will just feel like it’s the hip and interesting thing to say. Others will like the new one better and eventually will look back to it with nostalgia. I think the new one is good, not great, but that doesn’t matter because guess what? It wasn’t made for me. I already had the original. This new one, I’m only suppossed to watch out of sheer interest for the franchise. It worked, I just gave them my money. I don’t regret it.

@HallamQ
I see your point and I agree with you, but I think you’re analysis is a bit flawed in this particular situation. It’s true that lots of stories (in film and otherwise) have been told and retold countless times over the years, gradually updated over time to coincide with, and relate to, a younger audience. Hell, the majority of our great film directors have made a career out of making basically the same movie over and over agian. The difference, I think, with something like “Ghostbusters” is that it is a “modern classic.” We’re not dealing with Romeo and Juliet here. Who saw the recent remakes of “Robocop” or “Total Recall,” for example, and came away as entertained and inspired as the original audiences were? I’m guessing none. There’s a reason that everyone involved with the original “Back to the Future” films have emphatically rejected the idea of any kind of remake or reboot of the series. Some ideas just don’t lend themselves to being “re-imagined.”

So what I’m saying is that there’s a difference between taking elements from popular media and using them to concoct something that hits on those same ideas and feelings, and making a shameless rehash that has no chance of living up to the original.

I still don’t understand how this movie is being “…counted as a box office success.” Less than 50 mil and couldn’t even take the top spot in its opening weekend from a movie that was released a week prior? GB wasn’t a bomb, per se, but I can’t imagine anyone at the studio celebrating that opening.

This is just getting sad. The thing is a turkey. It doesn’t mean people hate females, it just so happens that more than half the movies that hit theaters are turkeys. I honestly think critics were probably nicer to it than they should have been because they were afraid of GURL POWER backlash. Every single word of mouth review I’ve heard has absolutely obliterated this thing.

This movie is in the difficult spot of being just mediocre; not nearly bad enough to warrant all the hate it’s been getting but not nearly good enough to herald it as the big all female blockbuster that proves the naysayers wrong.

The problem is that original is better in almost every way. Why make a reboot if you don’t improve on the original? Only one answer, money. Another issue is that younger generations won’t know the original because this inferior reboot will be the only ghostbusters they know.

They don’t deserve a reward for making an alright reboot, but they don’t deserve the hate for it either. Honestly, I feel like Feig is most at fault for the downsides of this movie. Most of my dislike stemmed from its editing and bad special effects. The cast was good, but this movie shows that they aren’t as improv-heavy as the original. That doesn’t make them bad comedy actors, it just means some of them shouldn’t be in a Christopher Guest movie.

Indeed it has! Aggregate “journalism” by posting tweets by random people, the goddamn autoplay videos that now minimize into the bottom right corner (pathetic move), and ridiculous articles like this. It’s really sad.

If the writer, director, and cast could have done a better job if they had disconnected themselves more from the original Ghostbusters then they should have just told an original story with original characters and not made a Ghostbusters remake.

But the original is better in almost every way, and the problem is that younger generations and females won’t know that because this inferior reboot will be the only ghostbusters they know. How do you not get that.

The new ghostbusters was so stupid and didn’t make a lot of sense I didn’t care if the characters were females hell I wouldn’t care if the characters were fucking animals the plot was horrible, and honestly the whole movie is an insult to the original ghostbusters

The original Ghostbusters was on yesterday. Nothing else was, so I turned to it. I have for years said that GB was in my top 5. I last watched it about 5 months ago. I tuned into the movie on AMC, at the hotel part right before Vankman gets slimed. Within 10 seconds of seeing my old heros on the screen I was overcome with sadness and anger. I could only think about how great the movie was, and how a modern money hungry corporation, and the feminist online army conspired to create a terrible movie and a false hateful propaganda to simultaneously put down men, and promote the movie. The new reboot of GB has honestly ruined the 80’s classic for me. I had to change the channel. I then stared off into space for an indeterminate time, until my girlfriend asked what was wrong. I couldn’t explain. This was an honest and unexpected natural reaction. I hope terrible women are happy. You win, you have your crappy mutant version of Ghostbusters, and a fan who never wanted a reboot is crushed. Congratulations bitches! I only hope this doesn’t stand true for other 80’s classics.